« 2005-02 | HomePage | 2005-04 »
30/03/2005
Table of Contents
My lib'n sent off more table of contents for a few of our serials. We are working it out as we go. Of course it isn't planned. She originally asked people to say if they wanted to be on a mailing list for the title but realised she needn't, she'll just keep the mailing lists as she sets them up and only take people off them if they ask to be removed. We are supplying the articles that are requested but now she's worried that it will create too much work. I said not to worry, if that happened she'd just have to send off an email saying we can't provide copies but that the staff are welcome to drop down to the library for copies. She is only this afternoon started working out which ones she won't be sending out contents lists for. Weekly news type serials won't be offered. They are covered by another index anyway. She was going to keep the emails in the email folders, created new folders for each serial, tucking all the emails away accordingly. Then decided we could save them as documents instead and delete them from the email folders. Slowly it will all smooth out and really start working. And we have stats. A spreadsheet I created.
I think she thought I'd hate the extra photocopying but it doesn't bother me, work is just work. We've sent out 14 articles from three mags, and it just means I'm not hunting around looking for work to do and getting bored.
19:25 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
29/03/2005
More promotion
Madame has decided one of my suggestions for promotion is ok! She is sending contents lists from our current subs out to people in the organisation. She makes it easy and copies and pastes the lists from the web sites, and is making mailing lists of people in different sections, but if the serial doesn't have a contents list on the net it won't get sent out. So far. She could decide to get me to type them up.
We have already have about 5 emails back on the first day saying they are interested and we have one request for articles already.
Part of my suggestion involved buying a scanner and scanning the lists and then they could be emailed out and that way we can do all of them, but that does require money and we don't have any. I wonder if she will give credit to me? I'll let you know...
22:27 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
28/03/2005
Revisiting Monowi
I've been really interested in the reactions to the Monowi Library story Pop.: 1 Plus 5,000 Volumes by Stephanie Simon in the LA Times. Lots of people have linked to the article and some have even commented on it. Most of the comments have been about the emotional reactions people have to the story, 'warm fuzzy' or sad. A few have linked it to the story about Salinas libraries being threatened with closure about the same time. A lot of the library community have noted the story but not commented on it.
In some ways I suppose library staff don't feel the story really fits in with 'real' libraries. It isn't funded. No one gets paid. There's no circulation system or collection development policy. Monowi Library is not fighting for existence as many libraries are. It isn't threatened with closure. It isn't being used by politicians to score point on their way to election. People aren't having massive fundraisers or donating thousands of dollars from their golf winnings in order to get enough press to guilt trip the funding body....
Someone saw a need and filled it. Luckily Elsie had another source of income so she could open the library without funding. Without funding no one gets paid to work there so you can't keep control of the collection so therefore you don't need a circulation system which certainly keeps costs down even more. Without anyone keeping an eye on the people borrowing no one would know if the books aren't coming back, but then we can't really control that effectively in public libraries anyway. If anyone is taking the books and selling them elsewhere no one will know. Certainly cuts down on the stress levels. I suppose some books are donated which would keep the numbers up enough that visitors will find something to read.
I just wish I had a source of income that would allow me to run a library / free book exchange like that. At this point I need to work full time and so I can't do the same things as Elsie. I like what she does. Feels very anarchic. In the original taking-personal-responsibility type of way. I envy Elsie and I'll send a few books to her library to keep that dream alive.
10:41 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
27/03/2005
Honesty
Be careful next time you decide a convenient lie to a customer can provide you with a shortcut to explaining policy, you never know who is across the other side of the counter. A little while ago a lib'n at my local library was mortally embarrassed when she was caught out in a lie. They were charging me an odd amount for an ILL and when I questioned how they came up with that amount she just said they pass on charges that are passed on to them. If she had simply explained the policy fully which involved an admin charge I wouldn't have questioned it. Imagine how the silly thing felt when I said 'I'm a library technician and I know how the charging works. Public libraries and the State Library have reciprocal ILL and you won't get any charges for that. Actually you should have guessed by the fact that I just gave you a Kinetica print out of the locations. Don't try to pull the wool over your readers eyes.' Classic.
07:28 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
26/03/2005
That Extra Inch
Library staff have no right to decide how much effort they put into a particular job based on whether they like the person or the job. Stopping short on a job for any reason isn't acceptable. My lib'n was asked to get a thesis that had been written for an overseas university and she had trouble with it. I'd started the job and showed her where I got stuck searching UMI (the thesis was a bit too old for easy online searching without a sub) but I also showed her that it was available from the university library itself. She screwed up her face, almost said yuk, emailed UMI directly and passed their no on to the reader without bothering to investigate getting it directly from the uni or passing that info on to the reader. I really feel like pulling the reader aside separately and giving him info but it could backlash really badly.
08:47 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
24/03/2005
Promotion
My lib'n is finally starting to get stuck into the idea that she has to do the promotion of the library. We've been given a stay, we aren't closing straight away, but one of the conditions is that the library has to be promoted. She's been moaning for days, resisting this, saying all sorts of silly things about other people not taking on the responsibility. You'd never believe she's running this library! If this library actually manages to survive it will be in spite of her not because of any effort she's put in. Today is the first time in two weeks I've heard her change her tune. She got a folder about library promotion from another library and it has finally sparked ideas. We actually had quite a lively discussion. I've never run a promotion campaign before but I know about it and helped out. I've also seen some excellent people in action. She was really taken with the idea of the elevator speech, 15-20 seconds of promotion. She said that it was an elevator speech that managed to get the library moved out of the basement years ago. I like waylaying people for ten minute lobbying. I'm trying to push her to push information out to our clients. She seems to be expecting them to come to us, but she sort of understands that isn't the way it works. I think she's also a bit scared of the consequences of promotion - what if we end up with too much work???
21:40 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
23/03/2005
Reasons Libraries Close
Scenario three. A small government library, part of a department that was absorbed by another department (thereby becoming an office instead of a department), that already has a library of it own. Both these libraries are at either ends of a city. The collections are quite different but there is some overlap in interest and they have both borrowed from each other for years. The absorbed library had a lovely but slightly introverted lib'n who never had to promote the services of the library before because it was a conveniently small organisation and she was located in a conveniently central location, everyone liked her and used the library. Promotion itself really wasn't a problem here until they were absorbed and faced with a mega dept determined to cut costs everywhere and a top dog who didn't know her and never visited her library. When they decided they only needed one library per mega dept she just didn't have enough experience to even make a case for staying open and really didn't have the interest - she was a year off retiring. They kept the library open for that year with her working by herself and simply closing the library when she needed time off.
Another library gone. More library staff positions gone. Another whole building of dept staff who are now having trouble getting their information needs met.
19:15 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
22/03/2005
Threats to Survival of Libraries
Scenario one: Small satellite university library with highly specialised collection under threat of closure. Dedicated lib’n with guts and nous for promotion. Constantly promotes the collection and tools to staff and students, which includes training.
Scenario two: Small satellite university library with highly specialised collection under threat of closure. Cynical lib’n who doesn’t like the students or staff (or possibly any other human) the physical library, collection or her job. Never talks to anyone about new tools, never does training, hides out the back and leaves everything up to her junior staff.
Guess which library is cut? The first one got so much support from the staff and students that management decided to leave it alone. Library staff are often the biggest threat to the existence of libraries. It constantly amazes me that such a high percentage of library staff don’t promote their library and don’t see promotion as either needed or part of their job.
12:42 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
19/03/2005
Logging on the Local
Ok, Blacktown Library finally got their catalogue online which is totally delightful. I now have a full list of all the Australian science fiction authors they hold and I'm slowly working my way through them! Most of the other books I borrow on impulse after giving myself a while to browse and only stopping when the pile of books starts getting to heavy.
The last bit of the catalogue on the net puzzle is logging on to renew loans and make reservations ... I ring to activate my pin number, I had to do that last time I dealt with Spydus at Parramatta Library, but they said I didn't have to do that it was automatically set to my birth date, ddmmyy. Very straight forward, but it didn't work. Checked everything, retyped my birthday in case I made a typo. Still didn't work. Rang a different branch in case that staffer was mistaken but I got the same story. The suggestion was to take my card into a branch & see if they could work it out there. So off I go to Mt Druitt, still the same story, but after a couple of minutes of fussing she says "did you put the a5/ in front of your number and the a after? Yes I know it's not printed on the card but it's the code that shows it's a borrower barcode ... " Ah. You'd think that would be standard info over the phone or it would be on the web site ... nooooo. Never mind, fixed now. And the interesting thing about it is that at Parra there is a prefix printed on the card, but you leave it off when you are logging on ... Never mind, really, never mind...
21:35 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
18/03/2005
Reference & the Relief of Positive Feedback
The reference for the article I wrote about yesterday is One more sermon on synergy by Paul Ludwick, Public Management, March 2005. http://www.icma.org/pm/8702/index.cfm but I don't think the article is free online.
The manager covering our library and records came back off leave yesterday. She popped in to say hello this afternoon, luckily while my lib'n was at lunch. We talked about some of the troubles she is having with my lib'n. I didn't go into detail about the things she has said to me, but the manager knows I have a difficult time with her. I also told her I'm applying for another job. Jokingly she asked me not to go, but I just said I have to get off the contract onto a job where I get paid leave. In May I will have been working full time for a whole year. The thought of working for another year or more without a paid break is something I just can't take. She understood and gave me her blessing, offering to be my referee. I pointed out it would be a good opportunity to get away from having a contract like mine anyway, it's so expensive, nearly half the money the dept pays goes to the contracting company, and management would think it wonderful. If she can't get approval for a permanent strait away she can always advertise for a temp under contract to the dept instead of to an outside company. She told me she really values my work and understands that most of the work there is done by me. It's a big relief to get that positive feedback from everyone else after going through such a stressful time with my brat.
Now this manager is definitely focused on the team.
21:20 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
17/03/2005
Indexing & Authors
One of my jobs is indexing management journals. It isn't a job I really like and sometimes the articles are really annoying, but hey, it's just a job that has to be done so I do it. Once in a while I find an article I really like, such as the short one a few months back that said if you wanted your knowledge managed keep your library open! This time it was an article (and of course the reference is at work) from someone describing how managers either focus on their team and so get great results from them or focus on the ones they report to and so get career advancement. I think I've already said in a previous post that I think people skills and ambition are mutually exclusive. It was so nice to see a similar view in a management mag! And they put it so simply! I actually wrote to the author, something I've taken to doing lately if I appreciate someone’s writing enough and if they provide their email address. I wondered if there were any managers who could change their focus and if there were any that could focus on both directions at the same time. He thinks there are a very few exceptional managers out there who can do that without conflict, but I'll have to take his word for it, I haven't come across them.
22:15 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
16/03/2005
Another Free Database
Another great resource I've found which would really help anyone dealing with dam engineering is the website for the Association of State Dam Safety Officials http://www.damsafety.org/ . They have a resource centre with ASDSO's Online Bibliography which includes ASDSO publications (conference proceedings, technical seminars, newsletter articles, special publications; Periodicals (articles from journals and magazines); News Sources (newspapers, television and radio broadcasts); Research (information about current and recent dam-related research)and Miscellany (books, reports, CD-ROMs, videos, proceedings, etc. published by organizations other than ASDSO). Full citations free to search online, aren't they wonderful? Organisations like this renew my faith in the internet being a huge resource for everyone, not just another way for people to make money.
22:15 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
15/03/2005
Libraries and Internet
I've had four days of fun work. My lib'n comes back tomorrow. Damn. But who want to talk about her?
I hear all the time from library staff and others that the reason libraries are having difficult times is because of the internet. People either think the internet has everything anyone could ever need or they think people think that. As a result people either don't need or don't think they need libraries. For library staff who think the internet is to blame I would recommend they stop being afraid of technology and explore the possibilities. You will also get a much clearer view of the limitations and be able to give informed opinions.
Anyone who uses the net as an integral part of their daily work will know that it adds dimensions to our ability to provide information. It's true there are a percentage of people who are power searchers and probably don't need us for net based information, but most of the people I see have no idea of the possibilities. And for a library coping with poverty it is a source of free information. Can't afford a subscription database? There are so many free databases on the net. There's even Google Scholar. Can't afford interlibrary loans? Sometimes the articles will be free full text. If not sometimes you can look up catalogues to find a library subscribing to a particular journal that the reader can travel easily to. Can't afford journal subscriptions? Check out your subject area amongst the free online journals and concentrate on using them.
In the last few months I have found a geological reports database, a free online journal about dam technology, an engineering articles database and almost 20 articles that were full text online separate from the mags they were published in.
So why are libraries having such a hard time? Later. Tired of typing now.
21:02 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
14/03/2005
Library Promotion
As the LT in this library there's only so much I can do in terms of promoting the library. A proper promotion programme is something I just don't have the authority to do. I can still do promotion for individual people who walk in. There's a variety of tactics to be employed at my level to get the most information out. For example even if they don't ask for assistance I can be proactive and ask them if they found what they wanted. When they say they don't want to be trouble I can chuckle and say this is our job, it's what we're paid for. If they ask for a book I can ask them if they are interested in journal articles. If I know someone is working in a particular area I can find a gorgeous internet resource and ask them if they've seen it. If I'm talking to someone outside the library I can steer a conversation around to what I do and how the library could help them.
Having a mindset to share is always good for this as is having a mindset to do whatever you can to ensure your job stays in existence.
That said there is still an ongoing problem of senior staff not taking promotion seriously. Either they don't have time, or they think they have a captive audience or they are inexperienced in organising a promotion campaign or they just aren't interested. Dissatisfied lib'ns looking for other jobs are the worst for this. Short sighted, narrow minded and only thinking of their own needs, not interested in people getting their information needs met or the long term survival of libraries. For those who of you who aren't interested, it's just part of the job, something you are paid to do, stop fussing. For those who are inexperienced pick up a book, for those who think they have a captive audience, just watch them walk, or those who think you don't have time, you'll have plenty when the library closes or reduces hours.
10:10 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
12/03/2005
Permanent Fulltime Jobs
A job has been advertised that I can apply for! Permanent fulltime in the public service and they want my specialties, serials and cataloguing. It's the first I've seen in months and I really want it. I'd like to be paid for public holidays, sick days and to be able to get rec leave. I'm a contractor at the moment. The pay, while good enough in terms of the private sector isn't as much as the public sector, but I've been contracted out to the public sector. The main problem with being a contractor is that they just don't pay any leave. If I don't work I don't get paid. At the moment I can afford this on the short term because my expenses are so low, but I pity anyone with Sydney rents or mortgages to pay. Easter and xmas must be hell. And I've been working for around 10 months and I'm having trouble facing the thought of hitting the 12 month mark without having a holiday. Especially in the place I'm in now, the stress is just too high. I can put off having a holiday if I know that I have one coming, but that means getting a better job.
The job I'm in now comes under the heading 'the things we do for money!'
Wish me luck.
10:54 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
11/03/2005
News Alerts
At last a new system was installed today at work that means I can get my Google news alerts at work. It became too difficult in the end to get IT to put my news alerts onto a 'white' list so I'd given up on getting them. Quite possible they were really resistant because they new this system was coming in. This new system makes each person responsible for their own spam so if I subscribe to something and the spam filter gets it I can just approve it myself.
The Google news alerts are mostly American of course, but it does include news from England and even New Zealand! If anyone in Australia found libraries important enough to write about in a newspaper I'm sure they would end up on the news alerts too (hear the cynicism...). The news from the rest of the world seems as bad as it is here, almost every article that has been sent through is about funding cuts to libraries, or outright closures being threatened. It's rather depressing when you realise just how bad it is internationally. I do wonder about the non-English speaking countries, are they suffering as much as the rest of us?
20:01 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
09/03/2005
Responsible Managers
I get so tired dealing with people who get into higher positions without having people skills. I have no real ambition except to do my work well and feel ok about everything at the end of the day. As a result I'm never going to climb ladders (except real ones, I actually have a head for heights). The people who actually have ambition and want to climb those virtual ladders don't seem to have any people skills. Maybe ambition and people skills are mutually exclusive! Personally, I think people in higher positions, especially if they have hiring and firing capabilities, have a responsibility to act in an ethical way towards their staff, but who am I, the unambitious one, to have such an opinion? My current lib'n thinks I shouldn't have opinions either. Today was classic.
I was on the phone to someone in a different library, part of our close network, we use each others resources and we've all worked together at different times. She told me she's moving to a different job (damn, she's a mine of information for us!!), so when I finished talking to her I told my lib'n. I also said I thought it was a good move, and the brat actually mumbled 'as if your opinion counts'!!!
I'm actually pleased with the way I handled it. I managed to refrain from slapping her. That may have been because she was out of reach! No, seriously, I just said, in a calm voice, 'there's nothing wrong with my opinions, especially when I've just been on the phone to her and she also thinks it's a good move'. She actually pushed it by saying 'but what would you know about what's going on with her and what would be good for her' so I countered with 'I've just been on the phone to her and she told me'. She finally backed off. I felt good. No submission, just explaining fact in a calm voice. She behaved for the rest of the day.
Thankfully she's gone away for a few days, I get four working days of peace!!
20:20 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
08/03/2005
Tired
Sometimes I'm just too tired. For anything.
Even blogging.
21:35 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
07/03/2005
Native Marc
Having worked in five different libraries with six different systems I'm getting a good overview of what makes a good library system. Things like an user friendly, obvious interface is important, especially in a small library where training may be scarce, but I think having a native marc format is even more important after seeing the mess on my current system.
I'm now working with a system that actually started out without marc at all and had to have marc added to it. It's possible to input a record on the non-marc interface but it won't map to marc. Inputting via marc does map to non-marc. The inconsistencies are extraordinary after a few different people have dabbled their fingers in it. The makers of the system don't understand marc and have slapped it on based on needs of a few library staff who do use marc. The results of this mishmash is a peculiar marc display that leads to the not so familiar misunderstanding the system and making outright mistakes. Get this: the marc display format uses table like columns, left to right, tag, indicator, subfield, then the information. The problem is that the tag is repeated for each row created by the subfields and there is an empty cell for each row created by the subfields:
650 | 0 |a | Aboriginal Australians
650 | _ |z | New South Wales
650 | _ |z | Sydney
650 | _ |x | History
This just results in non-cataloguers thinking there should be an indicator against each subfield and that the 650 field actually get repeated!! Other problems are that some of the punctuation is automatically added and some isn't, indicators being left out completely, the system ignores them anyway, duplicates of all sorts all through the system, and even headings being input as phrases, no subfield codes at all. In some ways this doesn't matter as the OPAC can search it all, but it's going to be a mess if they ever decide to go with a different system. Of any sort. No standards at all. I doubt the data will convert cleanly.
Of course a lot of this mess could have been avoided if there was a concerted habit to employ staff in small libraries who actually understand cataloguing.
21:50 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
05/03/2005
Library Poverty & Professional Reading
One of the problems of working in a poverty library, a library with a severely reduced budget, is that we frequently don't have subscriptions to library journals. I've mentioned previously my efforts to obtain information at work about my work field. This is generally called professional development. And while other areas of our department are catered for from our budget as we organise subscriptions to journal in their area so they can keep up to date on developments in their field, it hasn't been deemed useful for the library to subscribe to any journals so we can keep up to date with developments in our field. Just another area of devaluation of libraries and library staff.
My efforts have included trying to get access to rss feeds which resulted in the IT team asking if I would like to be part of the team testing the browser Firefox which includes the ability to read rss feeds. It hasn't started, but it's nice they asked me. I also tried to get Google news alerts but the spam filter gets them and I'll have to wait for a new development in the system which will allow me to scan spam sent to my address and manage it myself. Don't know when that part of the new system will be implemented. I can get Library Link of the Day!
My latest project is to explore free online full text library mags and choose which ones suit me best. I'm thinking I might add a list with a description of each to this blog but it will take a little while to get it finished. In the meantime those library staff who are starving for library info should explore, if you haven't so far, the free full text databases.
http://www.findarticles.com/ can be searched by a time period so you could run a search on a keyword of choice once a week or fortnight. You can get some strange hits: when I searched 'library' for the previous week I got 3 articles, one from a gaming online magazine and 2 from a guns magazine. They all mentioned the research they'd done in various libraries so it was still interesting.
http://www.magportal.com/ doesn't have the same the same facilities, but you can order the results by date. 'Askmen' was the first article that time. Using the keywords 'library serials' brings up more relevant results and seeing as this is my main field I was happy enough with the results.
08:50 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
04/03/2005
Bosses
Ok, so management are stupid, never plan, never know what it is they need until they have it. We know that and we all just hope they won't look in our direction because everything they touch turns to chaos.
For their stupidity I have now handled the same set of papers 5 times trying to extract the information they didn't know they needed until it landed on their desk. I have had my freaked out Lib'n blame me for her training inadequacies. I have had her repeat the same instruction to me four times in 10 minutes and said back to her "ok, I'll do it tomorrow" all four times. She also use her most 'distasteful and disapproving' voice which just makes me want to get so rude with her. She has accused me of taking things out on her when I finally sighed out load after four days of this crap.
She has a problem, she always has had, but with careful management on my part (she couldn't make the effort herself, I just don't think she understands the dynamics here) she has been behaving very well for a few months except for a half day every four weeks or so. Yes I know she's regular. Management is to blame for this. A tiny bit of planning, a decent amount of communication, a little sensitivity and consideration would have kept her in a decent mood and me much happier. I'm now at the stage where I wish they would close this library just so I can move on to another contract and get away from her.
20:50 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
03/03/2005
Stats
We have been statistics for year, as most libraries do. No one generally asks for them and at the last restructure the new manager said she didn’t want them. Told us not to keep them. Of course we did still keep the stats, we’d be mad not to, and finally, yesterday, we were asked for stats. We spend some time finalising them and sending them off. All seems well and we congratulated ourselves for continuing to keep stats. We knew we’d need them.
Of course, management said the stats weren’t good enough. They needed them divided up into smaller units. In order to do that we needed to go through every piece of paper we’d kept for about nine months and basically completely redo all of the stats. Having nearly completed it for nine months they changed their requirements again: only the last three months now.
The lesson here is what to do if you want your staff to feel they are wasting their time.
The other lesson here is how to implement change without planning. Good on you management, you succeeded!
15:38 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
01/03/2005
Time Fillers
In my library I often need time-filling projects. We have very busy times often for about 2 weeks and then very quiet times for 2-4 weeks. I hassle my lib'n to come up with projects to keep me busy seeing as she doesn't seem to want me to be doing cataloguing, and so I've had the job of deleting journal articles off the catalogue up to a particular year. That was approximately two and a half thousand records. I have reshelved the serial pamphlet boxes to create some expansion room. I'm always looking for problems and finding them and then fixing them. That's easy here, there are so many I don't have to go far to find problems. I've completely redone a particular job and written a new procedure for it based on recording everything on the computer instead of on paper and now I don't have to add up stats for that job at least, the spreadsheet does it for me.
I've run out of time-fillers. I'm bored. It's quiet. This is not good for me. In my desperation I've created my own time filling project to keep myself busy between taking care of the inter-library loans and the serials. I'm cleaning up the catalogue bit by bit. If I ever go near the thesaurus on the catalogue I fix whatever mistakes I find in there, and now I'm looking for article records that have been marked as books and changing them to articles. There's lots. Thousands. No one has ever tried to fix this before which is why it's so big. There have always been journal articles but earlier incarnations of the catalogue didn't actually have the article option and so they all ended up as books. And the system for inputting the info has changed drastically over the years. Some have a citation field, some have a citation in the notes field, sometimes it's in the abstract! These days it is a citation field and the option of article which means it can be searched quite easily both from the OPAC and the library side catalogue.
This is all complicated by other information getting into these areas, such as abbreviations for legal works being placed in the citation field and occasionally a series statement ending up in the citation field. I can't make any assumptions and I have to carefully look at each record to make sure I don't make anything into an article that isn't. At least I'll be busy.
20:15 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this